The Gifted Kids Network

Reject Elimination of Gifted & Talented Education Funding
Urge Your Representative to Sign Letter to Restore Javits Funding

With Congress on the verge of eliminating the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act, the only federal program dedicated to identifying best practices in gifted education, we need everyone to ask your Representative to sign on to the Courtney-Gallegly letter, rejecting elimination of the Javits program.

As the only federal program dedicated to addressing the academic needs of America’s three million students with gifts and talents, the Javits grants focus on students who have been traditionally underrepresented in gifted education: those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, those with disabilities who may also be gifted (twice exceptional), and English language learners. 

Funding the Javits program is more important now than ever. Recent studies have shown a growing gap at the highest achievement levels between low income students and their more advantaged peers. Our nation is failing to serve high-ability, low income students. The Javits program directly addresses this issue by funding grants that help teachers and school leaders develop strategies to identify and serve students who traditionally have not had access to gifted education programs.

Eliminating funding for Javits will also close the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. The mission of the center is to develop best practices, which have been disseminated and implemented in schools across the nation. The loss of this resource will leave students, classroom teachers and school leaders without the support they need.

CEC makes it easy to send an email.  Please act today!

Most of the technology links that I write about are tools that gifted students can use to create projects and products on topics they are learning about. Today’s tech tools  are a bit different.   There are many websites to help curious kids investigate our world. 

The Why Files can help students better understand current events and connect today’s news to their own lives by encouraging them to further explore the issues of the day. The Why Files uses news and current events as the basis for science, health, and technology questions and explorations.  

 How Stuff Works is another great site.  Categories listed in those resources include earth science, engineering, physical science, life science, space, and the supernatural. Each category offers many individual tutorials that clearly and completely explain a particular topic. The earth science section of the site, for example, includes tutorials on volcanoes, rainbows, diamonds, quicksand, carbon-14 dating, and much more. Although this site is not new, the resources are constantly being updated and extended. Unlike many static science sites, How Stuff Works will provide you and your students with the most current information on any researched topic.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute invites curious kids to explore biology…
invites curious kids to explore biology through interactive games and activities. For older students, there are virtual labs, where students can explore anatomy and physiology through online experiments.

I’ve started a wiki listing many of the great resources I have found in developing my online classes.  Most of the resources are free.  Join the wiki and add your great finds to the list. 

Parenting a gifted child can be a challenging experience.  The Gifted Kids Network sponsors a variety of parent book clubs and discussion groups.  Register for parent classes at http://www.giftedkidsnetwork.com/Parents.html

SENG (Support the Emotional Needs of the Gifted) Online Parent Group

SENG groups are guided discussion groups about the special Social and Emotional Needs of Gifted children, and are an excellent opportunity to learn more about the special joys and challenges of raising gifted children.  Topics will include:  Identification/Characteristics, Parent Relationships, Sibling Relationships, Communication of Feelings, Stress Management, Depression, Motivation, Tradition Breaking, Peer Relationships, and Discipline.  The online format of this class is convenient for busy families.  Classes are asynchronous, parents can log in at any point during the week to contribute to the discussion.   Class begins September 7th and runs 8 weeks.   Cost of the parent group is $50 for the first parent/guardian and $75 for both parents/guardians.

Gifted Kids Network (GKN) Fall 2010 Classes You can register on www.giftedkidsnetwork.com/fall.html
Fall semester long classes are $250 for the semester. Classes run September 7, 2010 – December 23, 2010
Oh the Places We Will Go — Recommended for grades 3-5
Travel the world through virtual field trips to different countries and different time periods. Learn about the people, languages, food, clothing and culture of different people around the world and through time. We will create a virtual class museum of the time periods and places we travel to.

Animal Planet – Recommended for grades 3-5
Visit zoos and nature preserves through virtual field trips. Research endangered animals and what is being done protect these animals. We’ll examine the practices of wild life preserves, zoos, humane societies and more. As a class we will create a virtual zoo based on what we learn about the humane treatment of animals.
Heroes, Heroines, Images of Greatness – Recommended for grades 4-6
We will investigate historical heroes and heroines, Nobel Prize winners, and other great individuals. Join the discussion on what makes a great individual. Create a class Hall of Fame with modern day individuals who exhibit qualities of ‘greatness’.
Ancient Civilizations Recommended for grades 5-7
Students expand their understanding of history by studying the people and events that ushered in the dawn of the major Western and non-Western ancient civilizations. Geography is of special significance in the development these civilizations. Emphasis is placed on the daily lives, cultures, and accomplishments of people, their role in developing social, economic, and political structures, as well as in establishing and spreading ideas that helped transform the world. Students develop higher levels of critical thinking by considering why civilizations developed where and when they did, why they became dominant, and why they declined. Students analyze the interactions among the various cultures, emphasizing their enduring contributions and the link, despite time, between the contemporary and ancient worlds.
Digital Poetry – Recommended for grades 5-8
Students will learn about a variety of forms of poetry. Students will write their own poetry and combine it with music, sounds, and images to create a digital poem.

This week’s tech tool is Museum Box .  According to the web site “This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie.”

This summer students in the Gifted Kids Network  Animal Planet class will be creating a virtual zoo using Museum Box.   I can’t wait to see what great exhibits the students come up with.

It’s been a while since I had the time to blog.  My summer goal is to blog at least a few times a week and share some of the great tools I’ve been using in my classes. 

Tech Tool of the Week – Glogster

I just discovered a new tech tool that I’m having fun playing with.  Glogster describes its product “Simply put, Glog is a kind of poster – fully designed by yourself! Glog is a fancy creation from text, images, music and video. … It gives you a perfect tool to express yourself.”  While the main Glogster site has some questionable content for students, the education site is amazing.  “Glogster EDU is your original educational resource for innovative and interactive learning. Glogster EDU was conceived to imaginatively, productively, and collaboratively respond to the dynamic educational landscape and exceed the needs of today’s educators and learners. We value the participation of educators and strive to assimilate their contributions to Glogster EDU, Glogster EDU is yours! Educators from all over the world are integrating Glogster EDU’s resourceful platform to make traditional learning more dynamic, more interactive and more in tune with learners today. Most importantly Glogster EDU is FUN for teachers and learners alike!”  http://edu.glogster.com/  The basic version is free. 

The glogster website has great examples of what students can do with Glogs http://edu.glogster.com/category/English%2FLanguage-Arts/   Visit my student blogs later this summer to see what cool projects my summer students have created with Glogster.

Technology is an exciting learning tool for most students, but for gifted and talented students it represents the opportunity to engage in deep and complex thinking on a wide variety of topics. In the primary grades, technology can be a powerful motivator. I don’t mean dangling a computer usage as a reward for compliance. The technology can motivate reading, writing, deep and critical thinking. In my work with primary grade students I have used several technologies to motivate students thinking. Voicethreads provide an opportunity for students to practice public speaking in a less threatening environment than standing in front of a class. It enables students to share thoughts and ideas about a story or activity without requiring strong writing skills. In teaching students to write a persuasive paragraph, students were motivated by being able to record their paragraphs for parents, grandparents, and friends to listen to on Voicethread. http://bvsd.org/schools/Lafayette/about/tag/studentwork/Pages/amazing%20grace.aspx
First graders loved creating a Geometry Video with our symmetry activities http://bvsd.org/schools/Lafayette/about/tag/studentwork/Pages/geometry%20video.mp4
Seeing their work on the school website was extraordinarily motivating to kindergarten students http://bvsd.org/schools/Lafayette/about/tag/studentwork/Pages/Kindergarten%20Corner.aspx?PageView=Shared
Students in primary grades require assistance with all of these technologies however they can quickly become competent in using them with supervision. The rewards of increased motivation, increased deep thinking are well worth the investment in time to introduce the tools.

Carol Fertig recently posted Ideas for Studying the Olympics. She’s given some great links that I encourage teachers and parents to explore. 

Personally I love the Olympics as a way to learn more about geography. Here are a few ideas:

• Plot the route of the torch on a map.
• Locate each country participating in the Olympics on the map and learn more about these countries.
• The New York Times has an Interactive Map of the medal or use Community Walk or Google Maps to create your own Map the medal count of each country

There are also some great Google Tools for learning about geography while watching the Olympics.

National Geographic has a site dedicated to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games

Here’s a great challenge: read a book about each country in the Olympics or by an author from that country by the end of the year. 

Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn more about our world while enjoying the summer Olympics.

It’s been an exciting week for the Gifted Kids Network with two journals running stories about GKN.

Read the article about GKN in Tempo Magazine.

Read the article in Edweek.org

It’s been a while since my last post on technology and differentiation.  As I was working on summer presentations, I came across a few additional sites that I’d like to share.

Christina Laun writes 100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner.  This is post shares great tools for auditory learners, visual learners and kinesthetic learners.  Technology certainly makes it easy to differentiate for different learning styles.  Steve Spengler, the Director of Instructional Technology for Secondary Education at the Pocono Mountain School District in northeastern Pennsylvania, has a great wiki on using technology to differentiate instruction. 

Sample Differentiated Lessons using Technology

General Music Lesson

A Different Place

Computer Kids Interactive Lessons

Donna Hebert Differentiation

Educational Origami

Enhance Learning with Technology

Do you know of other great lesson plans or sites that talk about how to use technology to differentiate?  Please share them with us.